How to use blackmail to get into America
Ashali Varma | Dec 23, 2013, 12.52 PM ISTNEW DELHI: Preet Bharara, US Attorney for the Southern district of New York has opened a Pandora's box. He has set a precedent that may come back to haunt America, which has on its shores diplomats from approximately 118 developing countries who in turn have domestic staff that can now blackmail their governments for Green cards. For this is exactly what Sangeeta Richard, with the help of her lawyer, Dana Sussman, tried to do to India's deputy council general, Devyani Khobragade, in New York. And this case landed with Preet Bharara, who decided to have the Indian official arrested, handcuffed, strip-searched and, to add insult to injury, had her cavities probed into. On India's horror at the humiliating and undignified way their diplomat was treated he said that Khobragade was "accorded courtesies well beyond what other defendants, most of them Americans are accorded". I shudder to think of what other defendants go through and wonder if Rajat Gupta, Brarara's other big catch, was strip/cavity searched or worse! It sort of brings back memories of graphic photos shown around the world when Saddam Hussein was captured and we saw his jaw being yanked opened for DNA samples and perhaps to peer at his teeth and gums. I have always wondered why the Americans put out that photo worldwide. Now I finally get to know this is just standard treatment for everyone that is arrested by US personnel!
As I write this, housekeepers of every hue have to be figuring out a way to get themselves represented by Dana Sussman. Bharara has effectively opened the sluice gates for a flood of similar complaints against diplomats from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. Also by surreptitiously "evacuating" Richard's husband and children from New Delhi because he thought the Indian government was trying to "silence" them, he has created a bonanza for all families who want to fast track their immigration to the US. Just imagine being given an expedited visa and being flown to America at Uncle Sam's expense! The teeming masses must be salivating at the prospect. I wonder if this "evacuation" is the reverse form of "extraordinary rendition" that the US practiced when after 9/11 they literally kidnapped citizens of other countries to be sent by special plane to yet other countries to be tortured.
Diplomats beware, Bharara is coming for you next. Better send your housekeepers and other staff back to your home country on the next plane out.
And where one wonders does this leave the 12 million illegal immigrants that are currently residing in America? I can say without a doubt that very few are earning the current daily wage of $9.75 per hour. So what is going to happen to their employers, most of who are American citizens? Are they also open to charges of human trafficking? Surely, Bharara is aware of this.
The US Marshals have their work cut out for them. New York and its suburbs could qualify as the favourite haunt of human traffickers and so called trafficked aliens from distant shores all waiting for some sort of amnesty program, so that they can get the minimum wage. This is because no where else in the US are so many different nationalities represented, illegal aliens can simply melt into the pot. Perhaps they won't have to wait much longer they merely have to beat down Dana Sussman's door and demand to be represented. She is surely going to become famous and wealthy, and the agency she represents — Safe Horizon — an anti-trafficking victim assistance center is bound to flourish and need many more assistants once other illegal immigrants in New York hear of it. That's bound to happen with the media attention Sangeeta Richard is getting.
I say it is a win-win situation for illegal immigrants and domestics. They can now legally file cases against their employers and get special expedited visas for themselves and their families — something even scientists and computer engineers from India are denied — and live in the US happily ever after.
What a wonderful fairy tale this is!
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/nri/us-canada-news/How-to-use-blackmail-to-get-into-America/articleshow/27784043.cms?